Bob Was Here: Recent Episodes
Bob Smith
I do some things; write some songs, cook some food, watch some sci-fi, mess with technology, and live a life. Occasionally, I write about it. That's this.
To commemorate the insignificant event of my 1000th tweet, and because I am a little bored, I’ve made one of my solo albums free to download in its entirety. Check out The Reason For Swimming. It’s good stuff, it’s free, and admit it… you’re a little bored too. Happy Mother’s Day!
I have nothing much to say about this, aside from my opinion that it is totally cool. The Fonz agrees, BTW. So who are you to dispute that? The song has no title as yet. I'm sure my "Bad Things" cohort and I will find some words that do the Mr. Fonzarelli proud.LISTEN HEREThe tune has 4 overlapping drum loops. Two of which I wrote, the other two were acquired by alternate means. I am playing the bassline on the keys, with a really groovy soundfont I found years ago. There is a faint guitar in there, as well as an organ. The song is intentionally short now... but both parts will be expanded as other instruments and vocals are added. Anyway... Enjoy!
This one is the germ of a song, at best. But it was fun. I sampled a drum loop from the intro to Booker T and the MG's "Soul Dressing", and then added a little bit of bass and keys. Nothing to write home about, but pieces of it could end up in a song. Actually... the Billie Holiday loop I did a couple of days ago is just about the same tempo. Maybe combining them could be a project for tomorrow. Or... maybe not. LOL. In any case... I did something tonight. And that was the goal. Enjoy the 60 seconds of repetition that follow:LISTEN HERE
Goodnight.
I tried something a little different tonight. I started with a sample of another tune and attempted to turn it into a song of my own. I can honestly say I have not yet succeeded nor have I failed... yet. I am on the fence with this one. It is entirely possible that this is the last the world will hear of this little experiment. But who knows, maybe in the morning I will love it.
The sample is from the intro of Billie Holiday's "I Cried For You". It's a good sample from a great song. I'm just not sure where to go from there. But it didn't stop me from trying! LOL
LISTEN HERE
After I had a clean edit of the sample, I learned the chords on piano, so I could have sections where the music continued but the melody stopped. I then created a pretty close approximation of the original piano sound. After I got those into ProTools, I started adding some drum loops... and then I added more, LOL. Finally, I wrote an organ part that is loosely based on the Billie chord progression, but it changes it up a bit. A little copy and pasting... and we end up with 1:30 of a neat idea that will probably never see the light of the day. Because... neat ideas, are not always good ideas. :) We'll see. Enjoy!
Did some tracking today with my friend and collaborator, Corinne. And things came out great. These are both still works in progress, but they're cool. These were both previously posted... "Mountain of Dust" was formerly known as "Untitled Church Drone", and was instrumental. "Again" was posted under the same title, but now the song has Corinne's lovely voice instead of my creepy falsetto. Enjoy!
Again
Mountain of Dust
Both songs are bass, keys, and drum loops. Again has a tiny bit of guitar. It's also the one for which I used my iPad to make the drum loops.
Now, I need to write more music! :)
Just a quick note today. Last night I added another part to the "Untitled Church Drone" tune. I like the part... I'm not sure about the transitions yet. Need to listen a few hundred times more. LOL
LISTEN HERE
Have a wonderful day.
At the urging of my friend Corinne, I have been listening to a lot of mellow, moody, downtempo stuff lately. Trip-hop stuff like Portishead and Massive Attack... and other mellow folks like Mazzy Starr, etc. Anyway, the intent is for some of it to rub off on me so I can make groovy, funky, depressing, music too. LOL. It is starting to work I think. The first success was my post a few days ago. Tonight, I did this...LISTEN HEREI've got a couple of different kits playing, panned slightly L/R. There are some bongos in there as well. A very simple bassline, and even simpler keys. If there is a challenge to writing this kind of music, it is in resisting the urge to overplay. Slow is easy... but it leaves a lot of space. One needs to allow the space to be space. LOL. Anyway, this has no title yet. Or words. Or chorus. But I am pretty sure it will eventually be a tune. I like it. I only included about 1 minute here... cuz it doesn't really change at all. :) not yet anyway.
Cleaning up my studio tonight, I found an undated CD labeled "Shu new song". There hasn't been one of them in a few years, so I knew this was a find! LOL
If I had to guess, it is probably from about 2001. We had recently rejoined after a 3 year hiatus. Matt Carl had not gotten back with us yet. He did a couple of years later.
LISTEN HEREAnyway ... If I am right about the 2001 estimate.... this is Todd Haviland on bass, Eric D Hamell on drums, Bryan Mull on guitar, and me on guitar and vox. It is obviously a recording from one of our practices. It's a safe bet that this is the only time we ever played this song. It's pretty groovy too. Creepy, a little. Not our usual fare. Being that it is a practice, the performance and recording are both a bit sloppy... but not too bad. :) Though it has no title that I know of... listening to my lyrics, I'd prob call it "Vultures" or "Feeding Time". With Shu... I usually made words up as I went along in practice, so don't look for any meaning. If there ever was going to be any, it would have come after we played it a few more times... which never happened.
Soooo.... maybe it will live again someday. Or... I guess it does, now... here. We're still all the same 5 guys today. Still family, still friends. Although we only play about once every two years, as opposed to the 4 nights a week back in the day. LOL... I think all five of us like to think that we are still a band. :) As a matter of fact, you may see us pop up sometime this summer.
Preamble:
I am trying out Soundcloud as my player for this blog, starting.... NOW. Let me know if you have any problems. But, so far, i think this is better than the direct MP3 links. Don't you? Please tell me. :)
Okay... onto the blog post:
Last night I posted a lazy little groove. Driving home from work today (listening to said groove), I started singing. I think the lyrics and melody I put together worked. I actually pulled over and recorded my vocals into my Blackberry while the tune was playing in the background on my car stereo. Glad I did. I definitely would have forgotten otherwise.
Anyway... later in the evening I remixed the rough tune from the evening before. It's much cleaner now. And I added my vocal part. I also added a lame-ass falsetto part to represent the pretty girl vocal that will be on there soon.
LISTEN HERE
The tune... some of the details I gave last night. The drum loop I made on my iPad with a Korg app. Then I got it into Protools and added minimalist bass, guitar, and keys. Tonight (as previously noted) i added vocals and remixed. I also added finger snaps. Not some lame-ass sampled snaps, mind you. LOL. Thems is real snaps.
This is without a doubt the best of the new ones. It needs the girl... it needs another part (bridge at least), and maybe another verse or two? LOL. But, regardless... even with those shortcomings, I think this one obviously wins. We'll see. Enjoy.
I tried things a little backwards (for me) tonight. I wrote the drums (or drum loop in this case) and then built the song around the beat. I've actually done this before, but not in a few years. 99% of the time I write songs on acoustic guitar. Nice to remind myself that I am still capable.This is obviously a rough draft. Currently it is only 1 1/2 minutes. The fun thing is that wrote the drum loop on my iPad. See the pic above. It is the Korg IS-50 analog synth. Really cool app... and i think it was cheap. LOL. I added some live performance to the gig (bass, acoustic gtr, keys). DOWNLOAD HEREWell, I am tired. Hope you dig this little ditty... it is sure to show up somewhere on another tune. :)
I am trying to find a new sound for these tunes. So, I decided to deconstruct and rework a tune I wrote a few days ago (see, "Moody Take 1). I messed with drum loops, keys, a new guitar track, and a bass track. It is hardly recognizable as the same song. That's probably just fine.
DOWNLOAD HERE
I may or may not keep this one. But I definitely think it represents well the direction I am headed. Anyway, hope you enjoy. Time for sleep.
I didn't write anything tonight. Well, that's not entirely true. I did come up with a chord change, but i never got to the recording stage. I'll take care of that tomorrow. But, tonight, I was talking to a friend of mine about some tunes from the past... and then I went WAY into the past... listening. I found this almost forgotten gem that 18 year-old Bob Smith recorded. It is as good, and weird, as I get. There are at least three bass guitars in this song, all harmonized. Granted, Spinal Tap did it first, but here I made it kinda pretty. I play around with tape speed (one low vocal is obviously a product of that). And I wrote some awesome lyrics. I feel comfortable bragging about my past self from 24 years prior... he's not me anymore.... but, I am allowed to feel like a proud father. LOL. Honestly, it's a stupid song. But, a pretty good stupid song. I am impressed with my young self. 18? WTF do we know at 18? But apparently we knew enough to say things like:
"It's been nine months Father since my last sin. I can see you kept your mind clean, I don't know why I have to say goodnight Irene"
"Invisible, inedible, intelligence, an all time nothing... it drives by and laughs. At our messy hands, and the tired eyes of the boys in Eastern garage bands"
Nice job 18 yr-old Bob.
DOWNLOAD HERE
The tune... from what I remember, there were multiple basses (all direct, with no DI), at least 3... one direct input guitar, and a really shitty mic for vox (before I could afford the $100 SM57). The title was a reference to a poison food scare. Two grapes were found in 1988 to have something nasty that would kill us all. The song was obviously a metaphor for the young me to ramble about the fragility of our society. 24 years later, I don't disagree with young Bob's take on things. I just make more money now.
If you read last night's post (and I trust that you did), you'll know that I am writing songs for a new project. I am writing moody songs for a moody girl to sing (her descriptor, not mine. LOL) In any case...this is the second entry. And, I think I like it. As often is the case... I wrote and recorded this one quickly. This time about 90 minutes. The tune will change over time, but I dig the germ that I have planted. I tend to listen to these little monsters obsessively for an hour or so after I write them. I did so this evening. Sometimes I hate them when I am done. That's not the case here. I think I really dig this one.
DOWNLOAD HERE
The tune... much like last night, I recorded a single acoustic first, then played essentially the same progression on the second guitar with different voicings. I didn't have time to add other instruments... cuz it's like 2AM. So I added a percussion loop. This time, a tiny bit of bongo. Cuz... who doesn't love bongos? ;)
Anyway, enjoy.
I am taking on something new. I'm writing songs for someone else to sing. Of the hundreds of tunes I've written (I'm not bragging, only a small portion neglect to suck), I've only tried to write for another singer a couple of times. But, this new project I am a little excited about. So I am putting in the effort. I have one directive from my new collaborator... she said,"moody". So, this is "moody" take 1. I am not sure if it is moody. It's nice. It's slow. And I am sure that a lyricist could write some moody poetry on top of it. I could (...again, not bragging. Not necessarily good poetry. See previous reference to songs that sucked).DOWNLOAD HEREThe tune... there is so little to say technically. I wrote a chord progression. I played it and recorded it at a ridiculously slow tempo (70 BPM). I then played another track of the same chord change but with very different voicings. I stuck a rim shot loop underneath because it sounded better than the click. I hope you like it. It will sound even better when the pretty girl with the pretty voice sings on top of it.
I'm just sending a test post from my new iPad blogger app. Disregard. Move along. Nothing to see here.
Alright, I'll just come out an say it. I love this one! Again, like all others... it's not finished. At the moment it is just a rhythm track (no leads, no vocals). But, it is a pretty groovy rhythm. If Shu is ever to record new music again (and we may), this will be a Shu song. If not... well then, it's mine dammit! LOL
DOWNLOAD HERE
The tune... I gave myself a two hour deadline on this one. 10:30 PM to 12:30 AM. That's from the time I started writing to the time I mastered the rough mix. I wrote a bassline on acoustic guitar and recorded it. I then built the other tracks around it. Eventually I added a real bass, but I liked the way it sounded with the acoustic double so I kept both. There is an acoustic rhythm guitar, a couple of drums loops, and three keyboard tracks. A real keyboard player would only have needed one, but (as it has been established in previous blog posts) I am no keyboard player. But gosh darn it, don't I keep trying? The chorus has a neat analog keyboard doubling the bass.
I usually fade the unfinished instrumentals out after about a minute. But I just like this groove so I kept it going for most of the 4 minutes it occupies on my hard drive.
Anyway... hope you dig it. I do. Thanks for coming out to the Kit Cat Club. I'll be here all week. Tip your bartender.
I tend toward the cynical and self effacing in these blog posts. Before I get there, I would like to say that I think this is a really good tune. And a pretty cool performance. Okay... that being said.. continue Bob (you cynical and critical bastard!).....
_______________________
Well... I wrote lyrics. And a melody. Both had an actual direction and purpose... so I guess that's progress. This is probably my fave tune so far of the new ones. I mean, this is rough. No doubt. It was me, a guitar, a mic, a foot stomp, and my hippie idealist/defeatist attitude. A couple of the other new ones win as far as intricacy of composition and production go.... but this is a better song. There is a lesson in there i am sure. But, i am old and tired. Sick of learning lessons.
DOWNLOAD HERE
The tune... not much to say. I wrote the words and music simultaneously. I didn't really want to go through the whole rigormaroll of making a multitrack recording. So, I livened up a mic, stomped my foot on the floor, and played the tune. And I like it. I can only hope that the final (new) recording has some of the flavor of this one... but without the flubs at the end, LOL
Anyway... make love, not war. Hope you dig the tune.
For those keeping score at home... here are the lyrics:
WAR DRUM
check your boxes
take your seat
your orders say
to come down on me
beat your war drum
grab your gun
the losers fought
the winners won
an eye for an eye and another
a kick for the sake of a punch
you get what you give and then some
we lose on a hunch
we're one too many
too many far gone
too little at stake
to stop our horn
so grab your war drum
beat your gun
the losers fought
the winners won
an eye for an eye and another
a kick for the sake of a punch
you get what you give and then some
we moved on a hunch
we lose on a hunch
(after this point i sort of ramble all previous lyrics)
Tonight's song is essentially the A Major scale, harmonized. A, Bm, C#m, D, E, F#m, G#dim7. Not in order, that would be boring. There are some variations in there; a couple of Major 7th's, a couple of Minor 7th's, a couple of 9th chords. But the tune is essentially every note and chord of A Major. Not for any particular reason other than I was bored so I started messing around. For the non-musicians (and guitar players, heh heh) in the house.... the point is that every note, in every chord, is in the A Major scale (A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#). DOWNLOAD HERENo fancy multi-track production tonight. I was strumming my guitar and came up with this pretty little tune. I didn't have the wherewithal to add a bunch of instruments, or even use a click. I just plugged in the mic and recorded a single mono track. If I use this one... and I may... I'll have to re-record the guitar track. But then again... I could always sample it and loop it. :)
If I was feeling Kurt Cobain last night, tonight I was feeling Neil Young. Fortunately with much better results this time. I did this one fast... really fast. One hour of writing, recording, and mixing. Despite that, I like it. It is definitely rough. Most, if not all, instruments will be re-recorded. The lyrics are essentially non-existent. I just wanted to capture a decent melody idea. These exercises are not about completion, they are about germination. I might use one or two of the words in the final version. I think this one will have a final version. Good tune... maybe.
DOWNLOAD HERE
The tune... acoustic gtr was doubled. One vox track in the verse, a different one in the chorus. I like the spacey reverb effect there. It deviates from the obvious Neil vibe of the rest of the song. The words, will change. Obviously there is a bass in there (which screws up the second chorus, but is otherwise okay). Simple drum loop for now. The only lead guitar is me fiddling with my acoustic on the same track as the lead vox. One of these days I'll need to plug in my amp and record some electric gtr. LOL
Well, here's something stupid. If I could take the hour back that I put into this, I gladly would. LOL. Alright, it was fun, but pointless. This will absolutely never be a real song. I played my worst Kurt Cobain impression on an acoustic guitar, then ran it through a Sans Amp plugin to make it "rock" (term used loosely here). Added the most innocuous drum loop I own (apparently) and then played a lame bass line, with a pic! Cuz, I figured... if I am going to sound like a bad Kurt... I might as well sound like a bad Kris too.
DOWNLOAD HERE
I have only subjected you to 1 of the 3.5 minutes that this "song" actually occupies. So, if you choose to listen, you are only wasting 1/60 of the time I wasted. Of course, if the universe holds true to previous patterns, this turd will ironically turn out to be my one and only hit. ;)
It was late when I started, 11:00. But I picked up the guitar and wrote a nice little ditty that I liked. So, I had to record it. Due to the time constraints of sleep deprivation, I presented to myself a challenge: accept the first take of every track. No matter what. Once the red button was lit up, I was going to keep whatever I did... and post it. Well, the results don't suck. I kept the first take of everything... even bass and keys (which is usually impossible). You may say, "what keys?". They are low in the mix, because I suck, and because I did not use the computer to fix any flubs.
Total production time, from the first strum (writing the tune) to mix, 2 hrs.
DOWNLOAD HERE
Still no vox. I just can't seem to find the desire to write lyrics at the moment. But, it'll come. Just happy to be making tunes again. Anyway... the track; the acoustic rhythm gtr is doubled, one lead gtr, bass, one track of keys, and two drum loops... one of a hand snare, the other (in the chorus) a standard half time 4/4 beat, buried in reverb. If the song is a keeper (and it may be)... it needs lyrics, the lead needs to be re-done, Todd will play a better version of my bass line, and Mato will play drums. The doubled L/R guitar can probably be final. I mean, guitar is the one instrument I actually know how to play. LOL
Well, bedtime for Bonzo. I hope you enjoy. I think this is the good one of the three I've done this week. Many more to come. Maybe not many more good ones, but plenty of noise there is to be recorded.
No tune tonight. Instead I started what I should have on day one... clean up. The room was in such disarray that I was literally ashamed of myself each time I walked in. Well, okay not really. I mean, if that was my personality then I wouldn't have allowed the chaos to ensue in the first place. But anyway, I knew that a decent human being would have been ashamed of it. And, as I am ever attempting to appear decent, I decided to clean up. It's looking livable. There is still some disorder you cannot see from the pics below. Namely the health hazard that is the keyboard/gear desk. But, there is always tomorrow. Anyway, nighty night to all. Look at the pics below and feel comfortable that you are completely justified in feeling superior.
footnote: my Blackberry is incapable of taking a decent picture. In this case though, I think that helps my case. Clarity would only strengthen your revulsion.
BEFORE
AFTER
So, I was messing around with some drum loops and playing Bass. When I plugged the keyboard in I realized that my PC had somehow forgotten that I have a MIDI interface. More studio rebuilding. Anyway, an hour later I was able to get a MIDI signal. I use an $80 Radio Shack keyboard (pictured) and a $30 M-Audio MIDI interface (also pictured). However, with software like Protools and Reason, shitty hardware is just fine. Besides, I am possibly the worst keyboard player I have ever heard. So don't expect much.
DOWNLOAD HERE
Anyway... the short little number featured tonight is comprised of said shitty keyboarding, a looped distorted bass line that is a little funky, and Mick Fleetwood on drums. It's true. I mean,he has no idea.. but it is him. I just happened to have a bunch of Mick Fleetwood drum loops on my computer.
Enjoy... or not. I can't blame you either way. These are exercises in reconfiguration and reeducation. I'll be writing some real tunes soon enough. Or not. ;)